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Cuban Churches qualify position of
Czech Ecumenical Council as anti-Christian
• For being part of the policy of
blockade and aggression of the island
BY SUNDRED SUZARTE MEDINA—Granma
International staff
writer—
THE Cuban ecclesiastical authorities met in the
Pastoral Forum of the Cuban Episcopal Cathedral in
Havana in order to respond to provocative and
offensive statements to the Cuban government and the
Cuban Council of Churches by Jitka Klubaloba,
general secretary of the Ecumenical Council of
Churches of the Czech Republic, and signed a
statement condemning her utterances.
Participating in the meeting were Dr Reinerio Arce,
rector of the Matanzas Evangelical Seminary; Raúl
Suárez, director of the Martin Luther King Jr.
Center; Yolanda Brito, vice president of the Cuban
Council of Churches; the Reverends Odén Marichal and
Rafael Columbié; as well as other leading figures in
ecumenical movements, and the island’s parishioners.
Their document constitutes a defense to the
statement by Klubaloba that support for Christians
on the island should not be channeled via the Cuban
Council of Churches, which she described as an
institution subordinated to the government.
The Cuban response says that
those provocations compound other acts of aggression
against the Cuban people and their government and
fit perfectly within the framework of political
lines adopted by the government of U.S. president
George W. Bush with the aim of reversing the Cuban
revolutionary process. At the same time, it states
that they are seeking to intensify the blockade and
cause more suffering to the Cuban people.
In that context, those present explained that these
positions are far from being Christian and thus are
unacceptable to the Cuban Council of Churches. “The
blockade militates against the fundamental ethics of
the Christian faith and the Czech Council is not
taking into account the options for the poor.
Reverend Raúl Suárez affirmed: “in this pastoral
action the Cuban Church is responsible before God
for the Cuban people and these actions are related
to the climate of peace in which we wish to live,
with the security of the population and respect for
national sovereignty.”
The proposal of the Czech Ecumenical official “is
not an ecumenical action, it is a political action
that is identified with anti-Cuba aggression. For
that reason the disagreement of the Cuban Churches
with these words must be stated loud and clear. God
has allowed us to live in this land and give the
faith of Jesus Christ to the Cuban people, because
He has called us to be their pastors,” the religious
leaders affirmed.
“It is a plan to lead the nation into a return to
the past. Added to that is the aggression shown to
Cuban families, where visits from their relatives
resident in the United States have also been
restricted, even if such visits are to have contact
with sick or even dying family members. A hostile
policy that is an attempt to halt the development of
Cuba and asphyxiate the island economically,
socially, culturally and religiously.”
The document affirms that “Christian reflection in
terms of opposition to the blockade and the use of
sanctions against Cuba is one step in the defense of
life. These sanctions for political ends only cause
suffering to the peoples, to the most disabled,
children, the elderly and the sick. We oppose the
blockade as a measure that is contrary to
theological and Biblical fundamentals.”
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